November 22, 2024

Franz Kafka at The Morgan Library & Museum, November 22, 2024, through April 13, 2025   

“The Morgan Library & Museum presents Franz Kafka, on view November 22, 2024, through April 13, 2025, marking the 100th anniversary of the author’s death. The exhibition celebrates Kafka’s achievements, creativity, and continued influence on new literary, theatrical, and artistic creations around the world. Franz Kafka is presented in collaboration with the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford, whose extraordinary Kafka holdings will appearin the United States for the first time. The items on view include literary manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, and photographs, including the original manuscript of his novella The Metamorphosis.” — The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan’s Katharine J. Rayner Director, Colin B. Bailey, said, “The Morgan was delighted at the opportunity to celebrate our centennial in conjunction with the Bodleian and to honor Franz Kafka and his enduring impact on literature. We are honored to be the sole American venue for this landmark literary exhibition.”


Andy Warhol, Franz Kafka, 1980. Courtesy of Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York.
Postcard to Ottla Kafka, Schelesen (Želízy), December 1918. MS. Kafka 49, fol. 79r. Jointly owned by the Bodleian Library and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach © The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Postcard to Ottla Kafka from Versailles (September 13, 1911). MS. Kafka 49, fol. 12v. Jointly owned by the Bodleian Library and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach © The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Unknown photographer. Franz and Ottla Kafka, Zürau, 1917. MS. Kafka 55, fol. 7r © The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
Der Heizer (The Stoker). Illustrated by Elisabeth Siefer. Mexico City, 1985. Private Collection, Photography by Carmen González Fraile, courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum.
Larissa Theule. Kafka and the Doll. Illustrated by Rebecca Green (b. 1986). New York: Viking, 2021. Bodleian Libraries. Penguin Random House LLC; Artwork © Rebecca Green.
The first page of Franz Kafka’s most famous story Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis) with its puzzling opening sentence of Gregor Samsa waking up from uneasy dreams and finding himself transformed into an insect. MS. Kafka 18A, fol. 1r © The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
In this notebook Franz Kafka crosses out fragments of stories but keeps untouched a drawing of a horse and cart, possibly a hearse, sketched in the same vein as his famous stick-men. MS. Kafka 19, fol. 18r © The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

Sal Robinson, Lucy Ricciardi Assistant Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts, said, “This exhibition, the first of its kind on Franz Kafka in the United States, will not only provide a unique opportunity to celebrate Kafka’s work and learn about his life, but will also engage with rarely emphasized aspects of both, from women like Ottla Kafka and Milena Jesenská, who played key roles in his life, to the very much ongoing afterlife of his works as they are translated into other languages and media.”

Franz Kafka is organized by the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Morgan Library & Museum, New York. Franz Kafka at the Morgan is organized by Sal Robinson, Lucy Ricciardi Assistant Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts.

Title image: Franz Kafka, Altstädter Ring, Prague. © Archiv Klaus Wagenbach.

Images courtesy The Morgan Library & Museum.